Questioning Questions

Decades ago I had an idea that questions could be vehicles to facilitate change
in addition to eliciting answers. Convention went against me: the accepted use
of questions (framing devices, biased by the Asker, that extract a defined range
of answers) is built into our culture. But overlooked is their inability to
extract good data or accurate answers due to the bias of the Asker; overlooked
is their ability to facilitate congruent change.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

Questions are biased by the expectations, assumptions, goals, unconscious
beliefs and subjective experience of both the Responder and the Asker and limit
responses accordingly. In other words, questions canât extract âgoodâ data.
Theyâre certainly not designed to lead Responders through to real change or
accurate revelations. (What? Did you really say what I think I heard? offers a
broad discussion of bias.) Here are the most prevalent ways we limit our
Communication Partnerâs responses:

Need to Know Askers pose questions to pull conscious data from the Responder
because of their own âneed to knowâ, data collection, or curiosity. An example
(Note: all following italicized questions are posed as a mythical hairdresser
seeking business) might be: Why do you wear your hair like that?

These questions risk overlooking more relevant answers that are stored beyond
the parameters of the question posed - often in the unconscious.

Pull Data Askers pose questions to pull a range of implicating data considered
useful to âmake a caseâ in a ploy to obtain their desired results (i.e. sales,
leadership, marcom, coaching). Donât you think it might be time to get a
haircut?

These questions run a high risk of missing the full range of, or accurate,
responses. Certainly they offer no route to enabling choice, decisions, or
collaboration/buy-in. They encourage resistance, partial/missed answers, and
lies.

Manipulate agreement/response Questions that direct the Responder to find a
specific set of responses to fit the needs and expectations of the Asker. Can
you think of a time youâve felt âcoolâ when youâve had short hair? Or Have you
ever thought of having your hair look like Kanye/Ozzy/Justin? Or What would it
feel like to have hair like Kanye/Ozzy/Justin? Wouldnât you say your hairstyle
makes you look X?

Doubt Directive These questions, sometimes called âleading questionsâ are
designed to cause Responders to doubt their own effectiveness, in order to
create an opening for the Asker. Do you think your hairstyle works for you?

These narrow the range of possible responses, often creating some form of
resistance or defensive lies; they certainly cause defensiveness and distrust.

Questions restrict responses to the Askerâs parameters, regardless of their
intent or the influencerâs level of professionalism and knowledge. Potentially
important, accurate data â not to mention the real possibility of facilitating
change - is left on the table and instead promote lost business, failure,
distrust, bad data collection, and delayed success. Decision Scientists end up
gathering incomplete data that creates implementation issues; leaders and
coaches push clients toward the change they perceive is needed and often miss
the real change needed and possible. The fields of sales and coaching are
particularly egregious.

The cost of bias and restriction is unimaginable. Hereâs an especially
unfortunate example of a well-respected research company that delayed the
discovery of important findings due to the biases informing their research
questions. I got a call from one of the founders of Challenger Sales to discuss
my Buying FacilitationÂŽ model. Their research had ârecentlyâ discovered that
sales are lost/delayed/hampered due to the buyerâs behind-the-scenes change
issues that arenât purchase-driven and sales doesnât address - and yay for me
for figuring this out 35 years ago.

Interesting. They figured this out now? Even David Sandler called me in 1992
before he died to tell me he appreciated how far out of the box I went to find
the resolution to the sales problem (He also offered to buy me out, but thatâs a
different story.). The data was always there. I uncovered this in 1983. But the
CEB missed it because their research surveys posed biased questions that
elicited data matching their expectations. Indeed, even during our
conversations, my Communication Partner never got rid of his solution-placement
(sales) biases and we never were able to find a way to partner.

WHAT IS AN ANSWER?

Used to elicit or push data, the very formulation of conventional questions
restricts answers. If I ask âWhat did you have for breakfast?â you cannot reply
âI went to the gym yesterday.â Every answer is restricted by the biases within
the question. Iâm always disappointed when I hear sellers say âBuyers are liarsâ
or coaches say âThey didnât really want to change.â Or therapists or managers or
leaders say âTheyâre resistingâ. Askers cause the answers they get.

Because we enter conversations with an agenda, intuition, directive, etc.,
the answers we receive are partial at best, inaccurate at worst, and potentially
cause resistance, sabotage, and disregard.

There are unknown facts, feelings, historic data, goals, etc. that lie within
the Responderâs unconscious that hold real answers and cannot be found using
merely the curiosity of the Asker.

By approaching situations with bias, Askers can only successfully connect
with those whose conscious biases align with their own, leaving behind many who
could change, or connect when their unconscious data is recognized. And
conventional questions cannot get to the unconscious.

Because influencers are unaware of how their particular bias restricts an
answer, they have no concept if there are different answers possible, and often
move forward with bad data.

So why does it matter if weâre biasing our questions? It matters because we are
missing accurate results; it matters because our questions instil resistance;
it matters because we're missing opportunities to serve and support change.

When sellers ask leading questions to manipulate prospects, or coaches ask
influencing questions to generate action, weâre coaxing our Communication
Partner in a direction that, as we now recognize, is often biased. Imagine if we
could reconfigure questions to elicit accurate data for researchers or marcom
folks; or enable buyers to take quick action from ads, cold calls or large
purchases; or help coaching clients change behaviors congruently and quickly; or
encourage buy-in during software implementations. Iâm suggesting questions can
facilitate real change.

WHAT IS CHANGE?

Our brain stores data rather haphazardly in our unconscious, making it difficult
to find what we need when we need it, and making resistance prevalent when it
seems our Status Quo is being threatened. But over the last decades, I have
mapped the sequence of systemic change. Following this route, I've designed a
way to use questions as directional devices to pull relevant data in the proper
sequence so we can lead Responders through their own internal, congruent, change
process and avoid resistance. Not only does this broaden the range of successful
results, but it enables quicker decisions and buy-in â not to mentiontruly offer
a Servant Leader, win/win communication. Letâs look at whatâs keeping us wedded
to our Status Quo and how questions can enable change.

All of us are a âsystemâ of subjectivity collected during our lifetime: unique
rules, values, habits, history, goals, experience, etc. that operates
consensually to create and maintain our Status Quo; it resides in our
unconscious and defines our Status Quo. Without it, we wouldnât have criteria
for any choices, or actions, or habits whatsoever. Our system is hard wired to
keep us who we are (Systems Congruence).

To learn something new, to do something different or learn a new behavior, to
buy something, to take vitamins or get a divorce or use new software or be
willing to forgive a friend, the Status Quo must buy in to change from within -
an inside job. Information pulled or pushed â regardless of the intent, or
relationship, or efficacy - will be resisted.

For congruent change to occur â even a small one - appropriate elements within
our Status Quo must buy into, and have prepared for, a possibly disruptive
addition (idea, product, etc.). But since the process is internal,
idiosyncratic, and unconscious, our biased questions cause the system to defend
itself and we succeed only with those folks whose unconscious biases and beliefs
mirror our own.

Due to their biased and restricting nature, your questions will not
facilitate those who are not ready, willing, or able to manage internal change
congruently regardless of the wisdom of your comments or their efficacy.

Without the Responder being ready, willing, and able to change, ACCORDING TO
THEIR OWN CRITERIA AND SYSTEMS RULES, they cannot buy, accept, adopt, or change
in any way.

To manage congruent change, align the Status Quo, and enable the steps to
achieve buy-in - Iâve developed Facilitative Questions that work comfortably
with conventional questions and lead Responders to

find their own answers hidden within their unconscious,

retrieve complete, relevant, accurate answers at the right time, in the right
order to

traverse the sequenced steps to congruent, systemic change/excellence, while

avoiding restriction and resistance and

include their own values and subjective experience.

Itâs possible to help folks make internal changes and find their own brand of
excellence.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS

Facilitative Questions (FQs) employ a new skill set that is built upon systems
thinking: listening for systems (i.e. no bias) and Servant Leadership. Even on a
cold call or in content marketing, sellers can enable buyers down their route to
change and buy-in; coaches can lead clients through their own unique change
without resistance; leaders can get buy-in immediately; change implementations
wonât get resistance; advertisers and marketers can create action.

Using specific words, in a very specific sequence, itâs possible to pose
questions that are free of bias, need or manipulation and guide congruent
change.

Facilitative Question Not information gathering, pull, or manipulative, FQs are
guiding/directional tools, like a GPS system. Like a GPS they donât need the
details of travel â what youâre wearing, what function youâre attending â to
dictate two left turns. They lead Responders congruently, without any bias, from
where theyâre at to Excellence. How would you know if it were time to reconsider
your hairstyle?

This question is a guiding mechanism to efficiently enable a route through the
Responderâs largely unconscious path to congruent change.

Hereâs the big idea: using questions directed to help Others efficiently
recognize their own route to Excellence, and change as appropriate vs. using
questions to seek answers that benefit the Asker. This shift in focus alone
creates an automatic trust.

An example is a question we designed for Wachovia to increase sales and
appointments. Instead of seeking prospects for an appointment to pitch new
products (i.e. using appointments as a sales tool), we designed questions to
immediately facilitate discovery of need, taking into account most small
businesses already have a banking relationship. After trialing a few different
FQs, our opening question became: How would you know when it's tme to consider
adding new banking parnters, for those times your current bank can't give you
what you need? This question shifted the response to 100 prospecting calls from
10 appointments and 2 closes over 11 months, to 37 invites to meet from the
prospect, and 29 closes over 3 months. Facilitative Questions helped the right
prospects engage immediately.

When used with coaching clients, buyers, negotiation partners, advertisements,
or even teenagers, these questions create action within the Responder, causing
them to recognize internal incongruences and deficiencies, and be guided through
their own options. (Because these questions arenât natural to us, Iâve designed
a tool and program to teach the âHowâ of formulating them.).

The responses to FQs are quite different from conventional questions. So when
answering How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle?â the
Responder is directed by word use, word placement, and an understanding of
systems, to think of time, history, people, ego, comparisons, family. Instead of
pulling data, youâre directing to, guiding through, and opening the appropriate
change âboxesâ within the Responderâs unconscious Status Quo. Itâs possible
Responders will ultimately get to their answers without Facilitative Questions,
but using them, itâs possible to help Responders organize their change criteria
very quickly accurately. Using Facilitative Questions, we must

Enter with a blank brain, as a neutral navigator, servant leader, with a goal
to facilitate change.

Trust our Communication Partners have their own answers.

Stay away from information gathering or data sharing/gathering until they are
needed at the end.

Focus on helping the Other define, recognize, and understand their system so
they can discover where itâs broken.

FQs enable congruent, systemic, change. I recognize this is not the conventional
use of questions, but we have a choice: we can either facilitate a Responderâs
path down their own unique route and travel with them as Change Facilitators â
ready with our ideas, solutions, directions as they discover a need we can
support - or use conventional, biased questions that limit possibility. For
change to occur, people must go through these change steps anyway; weâre just
making it more efficient for them as we connect through our desire to truly
Serve. We can assist, or wait to find those who have already completed the
journey. They must do it anyway: it might as well be with us.

I welcome opportunities to put Facilitative Questions into the world.
Formulating them requires a new skill set that avoids any bias (Listening for
Systems, for example). But they add an extra dimension to helping us all serve
each other.

Sharon Drew Morgen is the visionary behind Buying FacilitationÂŽ - a change
management model that includes learning how to Listen for Systems, formulating
Facilitative Questions, and understanding the steps of systemic change. For
those of you wishing to learn more, take a look at the program syllabus. Please
visit www.dirtylittlesecrets.com and read the two free chapters. Consider
reading it with the companion ebook Buying FacilitationÂŽ

Sharon Drew is the author of the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling With
Integrity, as well as 6 other books on helping buyers buy. She is also the
author of the Amazon bestseller What? Did you really say what I think I heard?
Sharon Drew keynotes, trains and coaches sales teams to help them unlock
situations that are stalled, and teaches teams how to present and prospect by
facilitating the complete buying decision process. She delivers keynotes at
annual sales conferences globally. Sharon Drew can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com
512 771 1117